Eli was looking at *His ride.* Shoulders back, one hand on his own ass.

"This is your Celestial Chopper?! I Thought you said it had style?"

Ruth narrowed her eyes. Suddenly far more ramrod straight.

A Wagtail started chirping.

"Really?"

He smirked for a moment, then gave up on the facade and his face became the biggest smile she had ever seens.

"I'm Mildly kidding. Until your uncle gave that *update* I actually thought it was the Ninja; You know, seeing as how *Star Mixer*, is like the luxury version-"

She interrupted him. He could see she was not in the headspace to actually process what he said.

"It's the equivalent of a house."

He shrugged. Beginning to get nervous.

"Yeah, I know that *now*."

She let a breath go… He could see her counting.

"..."

"Am I still getting a ride?"

He honestly wasn't sure anymore.

She twitched.

"Sorry, not sure where that came from."

He noticed some form of barely perceptible physical communication between Ruth and the ship, and stairs came down from the bottom, and stopped perfectly in front of her.

"Cool."

Eli and Ruth didn't seem to be at an ideal location for embarkment, and the stairs had to weave slightly to accommodate their current location in the hangar, but it stopped perfectly in front of her all the same. That was truly impressive.

…

Ari is playing with blocks. He is on the carpet, the wood blocks making a sort of clucking sound as he knocks them together.

Next to him, on the soffa, are grandma and grandpa.

"You were saying the boy was getting in a sick bed…"

For less then a moment, Ari wonders if someone he knows has cuties.

"I will never live that down will I?"

*Grandma is gonna die?!*

"You called her before 7am. When You knew she was very upset when last you saw her, the night before."

He wonders if this has something to do with Aunty Ruth. Daddy said that 'she did not mean to be unpleasant' to him, she 'had a hard time understanding' him because 'she was distracted.' Or something like that, he isn't sure what those words mean exactly. Just that she loves him very much.

"Can you finish your point?"

He forgot they were here. He looks through his twisty place and grabs a cookie from daddy's jar. Grandma seems not happy. But grandpa hugs her, so it must be ok.

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"Well, the boy seems just as able to put his foot in his mouth as much as any Schwartz, or Goldman, for that matter."

His and Daddy's family name is Goldman!! Are grandma and grandpa talking about him?

But he can't bend his knee that way.

His grandma hugs grandpa very hard at that moment.

"I love you. You know that?"

Grandpa sighs, his ankles stretc for a second. Ari tries to do that too, because grandpa sounds very happy.

"I do. I still love to hear you say it, to say it myself." Grandpa then kisses grandma. "To feel it."

Ari uses his twisty place to go to his room.

…

Eli couldn't look away. The screen was showing those net layers spinning, fast, slow, closer in, stretching out.

And it was so fast. Like a heartbeat.

"I love to see first time passengers like this."

He turned to Ruth at hearing that.

"What?"

She smiled, sat herself next to him, and handed him a bottle of Beer.

"This is new to you, fresh in a way I don't even remember- if it ever even was for me." She pointed with the bottle she still held to that screen, then in a circular gesture all around, toward where those are in reality. Outside. "How this all works."

They both took a swig from their bottles. Neither bothered with a glass.

After a few moments when he wasn't quite that mesmerized with the image if how the engine here worked and weaved what was and what wasn't in and out of tangible reality, he looked back at Ruth, and bit his lower lip.

She grinned, knowingly.

"You can run around, 'the ceiling is the floor' -and that is still cool, even for me."

He grinned back and went for it.

After a moment she went, still smiling, to the shower.

Hopefully he will notice and get inspired.

…

At a calculated distance and vector, as to not alert their target, there was a private Mixer. It had a standard crew of 16, and three VIP passengers.

In her Private room, Tara was…

"Are you really going to do that until the fun starts?"

She turned to look back at Bling.

"The Dame can still get to us here with the same ease as back home, you know. Everything has to be perfect and I work better after a *restful evening*."

Bling rolled her eyes and took a peeled banana from a nearby tray, and started unceremoniously gobbling it.

As she munched on it, the notable waves of bits that flew out of her mouth as she answered were cleared from the air by the Mixer's dedicated internal nanoparticle cleaning swarm.

"You know Boss, if you are tired, unfocused and paranoid, he and his roommate will not need luck. Maybe you should Go to bed."

Tara was about to retort at Bling's mocking tone before she was suddenly interrupted:

"Pay attention pup, *to your keeper* there."

Bling seemed shocked, yet pleased at hearing The Dame calling her Tara's keeper.

Tara was equally annoyed as Bling was pleased, but took comfort in the fact that she could see that just like herself and Karen, Bling was utterly petrified that The Dame took the time to keep tabs on them herself.

She honestly kinda hoped she was Exaggerating when she said that her mom could reach them here herself with no problem, she honestly would have preferred a reality where at least the illusion of independence from her 'umbilical cord' was a reality.

"T-thank you mother, for your generous guidance."

"I already have a bidet in my toilet, and it performs adequately without your assistance dear. Just do your job."

Karen dry swallowed her bite from her apple, its previously savorable flavor gone bland at the new development.

"Well, Guys, Our Lady of Terror, I will just finish this and go to bed," she said with a forces curtsy to each, before hurriedly excusing herself.

"See dear, If you are going to lay it on thick, this is how you do it," The Dame stated with a chuckle.

The fact that the amusement in the voice that did not come from the speakers, but somehow still belonged to a woman who was back on a planet more than a light minute away, and was only possible within the *reach* of her *concept* was chilling.

Tara shared a look with bling, one that asked if one of them should risk asking if the dame is bored and that is why she's focusing on them at the moment…

Both choose to not bite that bullet.

…

Tara snapped from her near-coma, post-fuck state of sleep to fully battle-ready as soon as she heard the specific alert go off.

She shot up so quickly in fact that she knocked to the floor the still awake cabin boy. She didn't have time for him right now.

"Fuck off Cunt Stretcher, I have real work to do."

With that He collected his clothes silently and left her room. With his departure out the door went the only guarantee that Mother wouldn't be peering over her shoulder at any given moment. At least Mother gave her privacy enough to screw in peace, even if she didn't have the decency to consistently let her dress in peace.

Tara used her stillness loci skills to clean and make her body as recovered as possible.

"Sequence *Dangling Price*."

Her nanite particle swarm flowed from its hidden and despersed form on the ceiling above and formed on her exo-armor and weapons.

'The other two are still snoring,' she fumed to herself when she realized that the alert had come from the crew not them.

"CUNTS, GET TO WORK!!"

She heard a crash from where the other two were, doing whatever.

'This will be good,' she mused with her teeth gritted in a predatory grin.